Prince Talal, president of Arab Gulf Program for UN Development Organizations (AGFUND) and the Arab Open University, has called upon the Qatari government to revise its decision revoking citizenship of some 5,000 Qataris belonging to the Al-Murrah tribe. "I request you to review the decision sympathetically considering the difficult situation of these thousands of Qataris, who found themselves suddenly in the desert after they were asked to leave the country," he said in an appeal to Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad.Prince Talal urged the Qatari ruler to address the issue with "a democratic spirit" considering the suffering of the people who lost their citizenship as a result of a decree issued by the government last April. "I believe that the Qatari leadership has the wisdom to do justice to this group of people who remain without any shelter," Al-Riyadh Arabic daily quoted Prince Talal as saying. The AGFUND chief made this comment while speaking to reporters in Manama.
A total of 5,266 people from the Al-Ghafran branch of the Al-Murrah tribe were affected by the decree. The men, women and children on the list are to lose their rights to state-provided employment, housing, education and health care. Informed sources said the move was "a belated response to a failed coup attempt," a reference to the 1996 attempt to unseat Sheikh Hamad.